ere long, the poor queen had a very close view of misery's children,and she drank to the dregs the cup of life's bitterness. Reason as wemay, suppress the disagreeable truths of life as we may, sufferingwill find us out, and pierce us to the heart. Indeed, despite ourdissimulations, we know that life is not a matter of lutes, doves, andsunflowers, and at last we have little patience with those who thusseek to represent it. We will not have the philosophy which ignoressuffering; witness the popularity of Schopenhauer. We resent the artwhich ignores sorrow. True art has no pleasure in sin and suffering,in torture, horror, and death; but on its palette must lie the sobercolorings of human life, and so to-day the most popular picture of theworld is the "Angelus" of Millet. We will not have the literature thatignores suffering. "Humanity will look upon nothing else but its oldsufferings. It loves to see and touch its wounds, even at the risk ofreopening them. We are not satisfied with poetry unless we find tearsin it." We will not have the theology which ignores sin and suffering.The preacher who confines his discourses to pleasant themes has ameager following; the people swiftly and logically conclude that iflife is as flowery as the discourse, the preacher is superfluous.Foolish we may often be, yet we cannot accept this Gethsemane for agarden of the gods; the most wilful lotus-eater must perforce see thestreaming tears, the stain of blood, the shadow of death. Nature inthe full swing of her pageantry soon forgets the wild shriek of thebird in the red talons of the hawk, and all other sad and tragicthings, but humanity is compelled to note the blood and tears whichflow everywhere, and to lay these things to heart.

Christ giveth us the noblest example of suffering. So far fromshutting His gate on the sackcloth, once more He adopted it,and showed how it might become a robe of glory. He Himself waspreeminently a Man of sorrows; He exhausted all forms of suffering;touching life at every point, at every point He bled; and in Him welearn how to sustain our burden and to triumph throughout all thetragedy. In His absolute rectitude, in His confidence in His Father,in His hours of prayer, in His self-sacrificing regard for Hisfellow-sufferers, in His charity, and patience, we see how theheaviest cross may be borne in the spirit of victory. We learn fromHim how divine grace can mysteriously make the sufferer equal to thebitterest martyrdom; not putting to our lips some anodyne cup toparalyze life, but giving us conquest through the strength andbravery of reason in its noblest mood, through faith in its sublimestexercise, through a love that many waters cannot quench nor thefloods drown. Poison is said to be extracted from the rattlesnake formedicinal purposes; but infinitely more wonderful is the fact that thesuffering which comes out of sin counterworks sin, and brings to passthe transfiguration of the sufferer.

Christ teaches us how, under the redemptive government of God,suffering has become a subtle and magnificent process for the fulland final perfecting of human character. Science tells us how thebird-music, which is one of nature's foremost charms, has risen out ofthe bird's cry of distress in the morning of time; how originally themusic of field and forest was nothing more than an exclamation causedby the bird's bodily pain and fear, and how through the ages theprimal note of anguish has been evolved and differentiated until ithas risen into the ecstasy of the lark, melted into the silver note ofthe dove, swelled into the rapture of the nightingale, unfolded intothe vast and varied music of the sky and the summer. So Christ showsus that out of the personal sorrow which now rends the believer'sheart he shall arise in moral and infinite perfection; that out of thecry of anguish wrung from us by the present distress shall spring thesupreme music of the future.

The Persian monarch forbidding sackcloth had forgotten thatconsolation is a royal prerogative; but the King of kings has notforgotten this, and very sweet and availing is His sovereign sympathy.Scherer recommends "amusement as a comfortable deceit by which weavoid a permanent _tete-a-tete_ with realities that are too heavy forus." Is there not a more excellent way than this? Let us carry oursorrows to Christ, and we shall find that in Him they have lost theirsting. It is a clumsy mistake to call Christianity a religion ofsorrow--it is a religion _for_ sorrow. Christ finds us stricken andafflicted, and His words go down to the depths of our sorrowful heart,healing, strengthening, rejoicing with joy unspeakable. He finds usin sackcloth; He clothes us with singing-robes, and crowns us witheverlasting joy.

III. We consider the recognition by revelation of death. We have,again, adroit ways of shutting the gate upon that sackcloth which isthe sign of death. A recent writer allows that Shakespeare, Raleigh,Bacon, and all the Elizabethans shuddered at the horror and mysteryof death; the sunniest spirits of the English Renaissance quailed tothink of it. He then goes on to observe that there was something inthis fear of the child's vast and unreasoned dread of darkness andmystery, and such a way of viewing death has become obsolete throughthe scientific and philosophic developments of the later centuries.Walt Whitman also tells us "that nothing can happen more beautifulthan death," and he has exprest the humanist view of mortality ina hymn which his admirers regard as the high-water mark of modernpoetry. But will this rhapsody bear thinking about? Is death"delicate, lovely and soothing," "delicious," coming to us with"serenades"? Does death "lave us in a flood of bliss"? Does "the bodygratefully nestle close to death"? Do we go forth to meet death "withdances and chants of fullest welcome"? It is vain to attempt to hidethe direst fact of all under plausible metaphors and rhetoricalartifice. It is in defiance of all history that man so write. It is incontradiction of the universal instinct. It is mockery to the dying.It is an outrage upon the mourners. The Elizabethan masters were fartruer to the fact; so is the modern skeptic who shrinks at "the blackand horrible grave." Men never speak of delicious blindness, ofdelicious dumbness, of delicious deafness, of delicious paralysis; anddeath is all these disasters in one, all these disasters without hope.No, no, the morgue is the last place that lends itself to decoration.Death is the crowning evil, the absolute bankruptcy, the final defeat,the endless exile. Let us not shut our eyes to this. The skepticoften tells us that he will have no "make-believe." Let us have no"make-believe" about death. Let us candidly apprehend death for allthat it is of mystery and bitterness, and reconcile ourselves to it,if reconciliation be possible. If we are foolish enough to shut thegate on the thought of death, by no stratagem can we shut the gateupon death itself.

Without evasion or euphony Christ recognizes the somber mystery. Thefact, the power, the terror of death are displayed by Him withoutreserve or softening. And He goes to the root of the dire and dismalmatter. He shows us that death as we know it is an unnatural thing,that it is the fruit of disobedience, and by giving us purity andpeace He gives us eternal life. The words of Luther, so full of power,were called "half-battles"; but the words of Christ in their depth andmajesty are complete battles, in which sin, suffering, and deathare finally routed. He attempts no logical proof of immortality; Hesupplies no chemical formula for the resurrection; He demonstratesimmortality by raising us from the death of sin to the life ofrighteousness, by filling our soul with infinite aspirations anddelights. Here is the proof supreme of immortality. "Verily, verily, Isay unto you, he that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he doalso; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go untomy Father." The moral works are the greater works. Wonderful is thestilling of the sea, the healing of the blind, the raising of thedead, but the moral miracles of our Lord express a still diviner powerand carry with them a more absolute demonstration. If, therefore, wehave known the power of Christ delivering our soul from the blindness,the paralysis, the death of sin, lifting it above the dust and causingit to exult in the liberties and delights of the heavenlies, whyshould we think it a thing incredible that God should raise thedead? If He has wrought the greater, He will not fail with the less.Christianity opens our eyes to splendid visions, makes us heirs ofmighty hopes, and for all its prospects and promises it demands ourconfidence on the ground of its present magnificent and undeniablemoral achievements. Its predictions are credible in the light of itsspiritual efficacy. "And if Christ be in you, the body is dead becauseof sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness. But if theSpirit of Him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he thatraised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodiesby his Spirit that dwelleth in you," Being one with Christ in thepower of purity, we are one with Him in the power of an endlesslife. Death has its temporary conquest, but grace reigning throughrighteousness shall finally purge the last taint of mortality. Notthrough the scientific and philosophic developments of later centurieshas the somber way of viewing death become obsolete; Christ bringinglife and immortality to life has brought about the great change in thepoint of view from which we regard death, the point of view whichis full of consolation and hope. In Christ alone the crowning evilbecomes a coronation of glory; the absolute bankruptcy, the conditionof an incorruptible inheritance; the final defeat, an everlastingvictory; the endless exile, home, home at last. Once more, by boldlyadopting the sackcloth Christ has changed it into a robe of light."That through death he might destroy him that had the power of death,that is, the devil"

We cannot escape the evils of life; they are inevitable andinexorable. We may hide from our eyes the signs and sights ofmourning; but in royal splendor our hearts will still bleed; wearingwreaths of roses, our heads will still ache. A preacher who complainsthat Christianity is "the religion of sorrow" goes on to predictthat the woes of the world are fast coming to an end, and then thesorrowful religion of Jesus Christ will give place to some purerfaith. "Through the chinks we can see the light. The condition of manbecomes more comfortable, more easy; the hope of man is more visible;the endeavor of man is more often crowned with success; the attemptto solve the darkest life-problems is not desperate as it was. Thereformer meets with fewer rebuffs; the philanthropist does not despairas he did. The light is dawning. The great teachers of knowledgemultiply, bear their burdens more and more steadily; the traditionsof truth and knowledge are becoming established in the intellectualworld. It is so; and those of us who have caught a vision of thebetter times coming through reason, through knowledge, through manlyand womanly endeavor, have caught a sight of a Christendom passingaway, of a religion of sorrow declining, of a gospel preached for thepoor no longer useful to a world that is mastering its own problems ofpoverty and lifting itself out of disabling misery into wealth withoutangelic assistance. This is our consolation; and while we admit,clearly and frankly, the real power of the popular faith, we also seethe pillars on which a new faith rests, which shall be a faith, notof sorrow, but of joy." Now, the deepest sorrow of the race is notphysical, neither is it bound up with material and social conditions.As the Scotch say, "The king sighs as often as the peasant"; and thisproverb anticipates the fact that those who participate in the richestcivilization that will ever flower will sigh as men sigh now. When theproblem of poverty is mastered, when disease is extirpated, when aperiod is put to all disorganization of industry and misgovernment,social and political, it will be found by the emancipated and enrichedcommunity what is now found by opulent individuals and privilegedclasses, that the secret of our discontent is internal and mysterious,that it springs from the ungodliness, the egotism, the sensuality,which theology calls sin. But whatever the future may reveal, all thesorrows of life are upon us here and now; we cannot deny them, wehave constantly to struggle with them, we are often overwhelmed byirreparable misfortune. Esther "sent raiment to clothe Mordecai, andto take his sackcloth from him; but he received it not." In vain domen offer us robes of beauty, chiding us for wearing the color of thenight; we cannot be deceived by flattering words; we must give placeto all the sad thoughts of our mortality until haply we find asalvation that goes to the root of our suffering, that dries up thefount of our tears.

In a very different spirit and for very different ends do mencontemplate the dark side of human life. The cynic expatiates onpainful things--the blot on life's beauty, the shadow on its glory,the pitiful ending of its brave shows--only to gibe and mock. Therealist lingers in the dissecting chamber for very delight inrevolting themes. The pessimist enlarges on the power of melancholythat lie may justify despair. The poet touches the pathetic stringthat he may flutter the heart. Fiction dramatizes the tragic sentimentfor the sake of literary effect. Cultured wickedness drinks wineout of a skull, that by sharp contrast it may heighten its sensuousdelight; whilst estheticism dallies with the sad experiences of lifeto the end of intellectual pleasure, as in ornamental gardening, deadleaves are left on ferns and palms in the service of the picturesque.But Christianity gives such large recognition to the pathetic elementof life, not that it may mock with the cynic, or trifle with theartist; not because with the realist it has a ghoulish delight inhorror, or because with the refined sensualist it cunningly aims togive poignancy to pleasure by the memory of pain; but because itdivines the secret of our mighty misfortune, and brings with it thesovereign antidote. The critics declare that Rubens had an absolutedelight in representing pain, and they refer us to that artist'spicture of the "Brazen Serpent" in the National Gallery. The canvas isfull of the pain, the fever, the contortions of the wounded and dying;the writhing, gasping crowd is everything, and the supreme instrumentof cure, the brazen serpent itself, is small and obscure, noconspicuous feature whatever of the picture. The manner of the greatartist is so far out of keeping with the spirit of the gospel.Revelation brings out broadly and impressively the darkness of theworld, the malady of life, the terror of death, only that it mayevermore make conspicuous the uplifted Cross, which, once seen, isdeath to ever vice, a consolation in every sorrow, a victory overevery fear.

LORIMER

THE FALL OF SATAN

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

George C. Lorimer was born at Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1838. He wasbrought up by his stepfather who was associated with the theater,and in this relation he received a dramatic education and had someexperience on the stage. In 1855 he came to the United States, wherehe joined the Baptist Church and abandoned the theatrical profession.Later he studied for the Baptist ministry, being ordained in 1859. Hedied in 1904. His direct and dramatic, pulpit style brought him intogreat popularity in Boston, Chicago, and New York. At Tremont Temple,Boston, he frequently spoke to overflowing congregations. He is theauthor of several well-known books, from one of which the sermon heregiven is taken as indicating his familiarity with and liking fordramatic literature. His pulpit manner always retained a flavor ofdramatic style that contributed to his popularity.

LORIMER

1838--1904

THE FALL OF SATAN[1]

[Footnote 1: Copyright, 1882, by "The Homiletic Monthly," New York.]

_I beheld Satan, as lightning, fall from heaven_.--Luke x., 18.

Whether the "glorious darkness" denoted by the name Satan is an actualpersonage or a maleficent influence, is of secondary moment as faras the aim and moral of this discourse are concerned. If the ominoustitle applies to an abstraction, and if the event so vividlyintroduced is but a dramatical representation of some phase in themystery of iniquity, the spiritual inferences are just what they wouldbe were the words respectively descriptive of an angel of sin, and ofhis utter and terrible overthrow. I shall not, therefore, tax yourpatience with discussions on these points, but shall assume as truethat literal reading of the text which has commended itself to theripest among our evangelical scholars.

The Scriptures obscurely hint at a catastrophe in heaven amongimmortal intelligences, by which many of them were smitten down fromtheir radiant emerald thrones. Their communications on the subjectare not specific and unambiguous, and neither can they escape thesuspicion of being designedly figurative; intended, probably, as muchto veil as to reveal. One of the clearest statements is made by Jude,where he says: "And the angels which kept not their first estate, butleft their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains,under darkness, unto the judgment of the great day"; and Peter, inlike manner, speaks of God sparing not the angels that sinned, "butcast them down to hell"; and yet these comparatively lucid passagessuggest a world of mist and shadow, which becomes filled with strangeimages when we confront the picture, presented by John, of war inheaven, with Michael and his angels fighting against the dragon, "thatold serpent called the devil." Back of them there doubtless lies ahistory whose tragic significance is not easily measured. The sad,imperishable annals of our race prove that sin is a contingencyof freedom. Wherever creatures are endowed with moral liberty,transgression is impliedly possible. It is, consequently, inherentlyprobable that celestial beings, as well as man, may have revolted fromthe law of their Maker; and a fall accomplished among the inhabitantsof heaven should no more surprize us than the fall of mortals onearth. Perhaps, after all, there is as much truth as poetry inMilton's conception of the rebellion, and of the fearful defeat thatovertook its leader:--

"Him the almighty Power Hurled headlong flaming from the ethereal sky, With hideous ruin and combustion, down To bottomless perdition: there to dwell In adamantine chains and penal fire, Who durst defy the Omnipotent to arms."

An apostle, admonishing a novice, bids him beware of pride, "lest hefall into the condemnation of the devil." Here presumptuous arroganceand haughtiness of spirit are specified as the root and source of thegreat transgression. Shakespeare takes up this thought:--

"Cromwell, I charge thee, fling away ambition. By that sin fell the angels: how can man, then, The image of his Maker, hope to win by't?"

And Milton repeats it in the magnificent lines:--

"What time his pride Had cast him out of heaven, with all his host Of rebel angels; by whose aid, aspiring To set himself in glory above his peers, He trusted to have equalled the Most High, If He opposed; and, with ambitious aim, Against the throne and monarchy of God Raised impious war in heaven, and battle proud, With vain attempt."

Our Savior, also, sanctions this idea in the text. Joining Hisdisciples again, after their brief separation, He finds them elatedand exultant. They rejoiced, and, apparently, not with modesty, thatdevils were subject unto them, and that they could exorcize them attheir pleasure. While they acknowledged that their power was due tothe influence of His name, they evidently thought more ofthemselves than of Him. They were given to unseemly glorifying andself-satisfaction, and were met by the Master's words--half warning,half rebuke--"I beheld Satan, as lightning, fall from heaven." He thusidentifies their pride with that evil spirit which led to angelicruin, and seeks to banish it from their hearts: "Rejoice not that thedemons are subject unto you, but, rather, rejoice because your namesare written in heaven." Rejoice not on account of privilege andpower, but on account of grace; for the memory of grace must promotehumility, as it will recall the guilt of which it is the remedy.

We have, here, a lesson for all ages and for all classes of society--alesson continually enforced by Scripture, and illustrated by history.It deals with the insanity of pride and the senselessness ofegotism. It reminds us, by repeated examples, of the temptations toself-inflation, and of the perils which assail its indulgence. "Yeshall be as gods," was the smiling, sarcastic allurement whichbeguiled our first parents to their ruin. They thought that beforethem rose an eminence which the foot of creaturehood had nevertrodden; that from its height the adventurous climber would rivalDeity in the sweep of his knowledge and the depth of his joy. Elatedand dazzled by the prospect, they dared tread through sin to itsattainment, vainly dreaming that wrong-doing would lead to a purerparadise and to a loftier throne. One step, and only one, in thegratification of their desires, converted their enchanting mountaininto a yawning gulf, and in its horrid wastes of darkness and ofsorrow their high-blown pride was shamed and smothered. The haughtyking walked on the terrace heights of Babylon, and, beneath the calmsplendor of an Assyrian sky, voiced the complacent feeling whichdulled his sense of dependence upon God--as the perfumes of the Eastlull into waking-slumber the faculties of the soul. Thus ran hisself-glorifying soliloquy: "Is not this great Babylon that I havebuilt for the house of the kingdom by the might of my power, and forthe honor of my majesty?" Alas for the weakness of the royal egotist!In an hour his boasting was at an end, and, reduced by the chasteningjudgment of the Almighty to the level of the brute creation, he wascompelled to learn that "those who walk in pride the King of heavenis able to abase." Similar the lesson taught us by the overthrowof Belshazzar when, congratulating himself on the stability of histhrone, and in his excess of arrogance, he insulted the sacred vesselswhich his father had plundered from the temple at Jerusalem. I saytaught us, for the foolhardy braggart was past learning anythinghimself. Like the yet more silly Herod, who drank in the adulation ofthe mob as he sat shimmering in his silver robe and slimed his speechfrom his serpent-tongue, he was too inflated and bloated with vanityto be corrected by wholesome discipline. Both of these rulers were tooself-satisfied to be reproved, and God's exterminating indignationovertook them. Like empty bubbles, nothing could be done with them,and hence the breath of the Almighty burst and dispersed theirglittering worthlessness. Pope John XXI., according to Dean Milman, isanother conspicuous monument of this folly. "Contemplating," writesthe historian, "with too much pride the work of his own hands"--thesplendid palace of Viterbo--"at that instant the avenging roof camedown, on his head." And Shakespeare has immortalized the pathetic doomwhich awaits the proud man, who, confident in his own importance andin the magnitude of his destiny, is swallowed up in schemes and plansfor his personal aggrandizement and power. Wolsey goes too far in hisself-seeking, is betrayed by his excess of statecraft, and, beingpublicly disgraced, laments, when too late, his selfish folly:--

"I have ventured, Like little wanton boys that swim on bladders, These many summers on a sea of glory, But far beyond my depth: my high-blown pride At length broke under me; and now has left me, Weary, and old with service, to the mercy Of a rude stream, that must forever hide me."

It is not difficult to discern the fatal effects of this spirit inthe lives of the great and mighty; but we are frequently blind to itspernicious influence on the lowly and weak. We do not realize, as weought, that the differences between men lie mainly in their position,not in their experiences and dangers. The leaders of society aremerely actors, exhibiting on the public stage of history what iscommon to mankind at large. However insignificant we may be, andhowever obscure our station, our inner life is not far removed fromthat of the exalted personages who draw to themselves the attention ofthe world. The poorest man has his ambitions, his struggles and hisreverses; and the first may take as deep a hold upon his heart, andthe second call forth as much cunning or wisdom to confront, and thelast as much bitterness to endure, as are found in the vicissitudesof a Richelieu or a Napoleon. The peasant's daughter, in her narrowcircle, feels as keenly the disappointment of her hopes, and mourns asintensely the betrayal of her confidence, or the rude ending of herday-dreams, as either queen or princess, as either Katharine ofEngland or Josephine of France. We do wrong to separate, as widely aswe do in our thoughts, ranks and conditions of society. The palace andthe hovel are nearer to each other than we usually think; and whatpasses beneath the fretted ceiling of the one, and the thatched roofof the other, is divided by the shadowy line of mere externalities.And so it happens that the fall of an angel may be pertinent to thestate of a fisherman-disciple, and the fall of a prime minister orruler have its message of warning for the tradesman and mechanic.

Indeed, it will generally be found that the failures of life, and theworse than failures, are mainly due to the same cause which emptiedheavenly thrones of their angelic occupants. What is it, let me ask,that comes into clearer prominence as the Washington tragedy[1] isbeing investigated and scrutinized? Is it not that a diseased egotism,or perhaps it would be more correct to say, a stalwart egotism, robbedthis country of its ruler, committed "most sacrilegious murder," and"broke ope"

"The Lord's anointed temple, and stole thence The life o' the building."

[Footnote 1: The assassination of President Garfield.]

Like bloody Macbeth, who greedily drank in the prognostications of theweird sisters, tho he feared that the "supernatural soliciting" couldnot be good, because they pandered to his monstrous self-infatuation,Guiteau, having wrought himself up through many years ofself-complacency, claims to have believed that the divine Being hadchosen him to do a deed which has filled the earth with horror. Thusthe growth of self-conceit into mammoth proportions tends to obscurethe rights of others, and to darken with its gigantic shadow thelight of conscience. If we are to admit the prisoner's story, as theexpression of his real condition prior to the assassination, we lookon one so intoxicated with the sense of his own importance that hewould "spurn the sea, if it could roar at him," and hesitate not toperform any deed of darkness that would render him more conspicuous.Others, less heinous offenders than this garrulous murderer, have,from similar weakness, wrought indescribable mischief to themselves.The man, for instance, who frets against providence because hisstanding is not higher and his influence greater, has evidentlya better opinion of his deservings than is wholesome for him. Heimagines he is being wronged by the Creator--that his merits are notrecognized as they should be--never, for a moment, remembering that,as a sinner, he has no claims on the extraordinary bounty of hisheavenly Father. From murmuring he easily glides into open rebellion,and from whispered reproaches to loud denunciations. There are peoplein every community whose pride leads them into shameful transactions.They would not condescend to mingle with their social inferiors, butthey will subsist on the earnings of their friends, and consider it nodisgrace to borrow money which they have no intention of returning.Their vanity, at times, commits them to extravagances which they haveno means of supporting. They ought to have carriages and horses,mansions and pictures, with all the luxuries of affluence--at leastso they think--and, being destitute of the resources requisite tomaintain such state, they become adepts in those arts which qualifyfor the penitentiary. Others have such confidence in the strength oftheir virtue, such commanding arrogance of integrity, that, like acaptain who underestimates the force of an enemy and overrates hisown, they neglect to place a picket-guard on the outskirts of theirmoral camp, and in such an hour as they think not they are surprizedand lost. Even possessors of religion are not always clear of thisfolly, or safe from its perils. They "think more highly of themselvesthan they ought to think"; they come to regard themselves as speciallyfavored of heaven; they talk of the Almighty in a free and easymanner, and of Jesus Christ as tho He were not the Judge at all. Whenthey pray, it is with a familiarity bordering on irreverence, andwhen they deal with sacred themes it is with a lightness that breedscontempt. When they recount the marvels which they have wrought inthe name of Christ, it is hardly-possible for them to hide theirself-complacency; for, while they profess to give Him the glory, themanner of their speech shows that they are taking it to themselves.They are like the disciples, who were as proud of their prowess incasting out devils as children are with their beautiful toys, andthey are as much in need of the Savior's warning: "I beheld Satan, aslightning, fall from heaven." And because they have failed to giveheed unto it, they have oftentimes followed the Evil One in hisdownward course, and in a moment have made shipwreck of their faith.

"As sails, full spread, and bellying with the wind, Drop, suddenly collapsed, if the mast split; So to the ground down dropped the cruel fiend";

and earthward have the unsaintly saints of God as swiftly sped, whenthey have fostered the pride which changed angels into demons.

"How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning!" Whatmore pitiable spectacle than the ruin of an angel! We have seen theforsaken halls of time-worn and dilapidated castles, have stood inthe unroofed palaces of ancient princes, and have gazed on themoss-covered and ivy-decked towers of perishing churches, and thesight of them has tilled our hearts with melancholy, as we thoughtof what had been, and of the changes that had swept over the fair,valiant and pious throngs whose laughter, bravery and prayers oncemade these scenes so gay and vocal. All is hushed now, and the silenceis broken only by the hoot and screech of the owl, or by the rustle ofthe nightbat's leathern wing. But how much sadder is the form of themighty spirit, who once sat regnant among the sons of light, emptiedof his innocence, filled with foul, creeping, venomous thoughts andfeelings, uncrowned, dethroned only with malignity and throned inevil! The Bible calls him the prince and the god of this world; andeverywhere we are surrounded with evidences of his despotic sway.Unlike earthly rulers, whose exhausted natures exact repose, heis ever sleepless, and his plotting never ends. Enter his somberpresence-chamber, and commotion, bustle, activity will confront andamaze you. He is continually sending his emissaries forth in everydirection. The perpetual wranglings, ceaseless distractions,irreconcilable contradictions, disquieting doubts, discouragingoutlooks, inharmonious and jangling opinions, unaccountable delusions,clashing and crashing dissonances, cruel hatreds, bitter enmities andstormful convulsions, which so largely enter and deface the course ofhuman history, proceed mainly from his influence. We know that "theheart of a lost angel is in the earth," and as we know its throbbingscarry misery and despair to millions of our fellow-beings, we cansurmise the intensity of we wherewith it afflicts himself. Mrs.Browning's Adam thus addresses Lucifer:--

"The prodigy Of thy vast brows and melancholy eyes, Which comprehend the heights of some great fall. I think that thou hast one day worn a crown Under the eyes of God."

But now the vast brow must wear a heavier gloom, and the eyes betray adeeper sorrow, as in his ruin he has sought to bury the hopes and joysof a weaker race. How different his dealings with the race from thosewhich mark the ministry of Christ! Immortal hate on the one side ofhumanity; immortal love on the other; both struggling for supremacy.One sweeping across the soul with pinions of dark doubts and fears;the other, with the strong wing of hope and fair anticipations. Oneseeking to plunge the earth-spirit into the abysmal depths of eternaldarkness; the other seeking to bear it to the apex of light, wherereigns eternal day. And of the two, Christ alone is called "theblest." In the agony and anguish of His sufferings He yet can exclaim,"My joy I leave with thee"; and in the lowest vale of His shame cancalmly discourse on peace. The reason? Do you ask the question? Itis found in His goodness. He is good, and seeks the good of all; andgoodness crowns His lacerated brow with joy. This Satan sacrificedin his fall; this he antagonizes with, in his dreary career, and soremains in the eyes of all ages the monument of melancholy gloom.Thus, also, is it with man, whose haughtiness thrusts him into evil.He is morose and wretched, crusht beneath a burden of we, which weighsthe eyelids down with weariness and the heart with care, andwhich constrains him to curse the hour of his birth. Next to thegrief-crowned angel, there is no more pitiable object in all God'sfair creation than a human soul tumbled by its own besotted pride intosin and shame. "How is the gold become dim! how is the most fine goldchanged!" aye, changed to dross, which the foot spurns, and which thewhirlwind scatters to the midnight region of eternity.

In view of these reflections, we can understand the stress laid by theinspired writers on the grace of humility. We are exhorted to be likeJesus, who was meek and lowly in heart; and we are commanded to esteemothers better than ourselves. These admonitions are not designed tocultivate a servile or an abject spirit, but to promote a wholesomesense of our own limitations, weaknesses and dependence. They wouldfoster such a state of mind as will receive instruction, as will leanon the Almighty, and recognize the worthiness and rights of all. Justas the flower has to pass its season entombed in the darkness of itscalyx before it spreads forth its radiant colors and breathes itsperfume, so the soul must veil itself in the consciousness of its ownignorance and sinfulness before it will be able to expand in truegreatness, or shed around it the aroma of pure goodness. Crossing theprairies recently between this city and St. Louis, I noticed that thetrees were nearly all bowed in the direction of the northeast. As ourstrongest winds blow from that quarter, it was natural to inquire whythey were not bent to the southwest. The explanation given was, thatthe south winds prevail in the time of sap, when the trees are supplewith life and heavy with foliage, and consequently, that they yieldbefore them. But when the winter comes they are hard and firm, rigidand stiff, and even the fury of the tempest affects them not. Thusis it with human souls. When humility fills the heart, when itsgentleness renders susceptible its thoughts and feelings, the softestbreath of God's Spirit can bend it earthward to help the needy, anddownward to supplicate and welcome heaven's grace. But when it isfrozen through and through with pride, it coldly resists the overturesof mercy, and in its deadness is apathetic even, to the storm ofwrath. Nothing remains but for the wild hurricane to uproot it andlevel it to the ground. Such is the moral of my brief discourse. Godgrant we may have the wisdom of humility to receive it!

KNOX LITTLE

THIRST SATISFIED

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

William John Knox Little, English preacher, was born 1839 and educatedat Cambridge University. He has filled many parochial cures, and in1881 was appointed canon of Worcester, and sub-dean in 1902. He alsoholds the vicarage of Hoar Cross (1885). He is of high repute as apreacher and is in much request all over England. He belongs to theHigh Church school and has printed, besides his sermons, many works ofeducational character, such as the "Treasury of Meditation," "Manualof Devotion for Lent," and "Confirmation and Holy Communion."

KNOX LITTLE

BORN IN 1839

THIRST SATISFIED[1]

[Footnote 1: Reprinted by permission of Hodder & Stoughton, London.]

_My soul is athirst for God, for the living God; when shall I come andappear before the presence of God?_--Psalm xlii., 2.

The verse, dear friends, which I have read to you for a text is oneof those verses which justify in the highest degree the action of theChristian Church in selecting the Hebrew Psalter as, in fact, herprayer-book. There are many passages, as you will feel with me, in theHebrew psalter that express in a very high degree the wants of thehuman soul; but perhaps there is no passage more telling, moretouching, more searching, more expressive than that solemn and thatexalted sentiment which is spoken in the text, "My soul is athirstfor God, for the living God; when shall I come and appear before thepresence of God?" The passage is a justification, then, of the actionof the Christian Church. People sometimes ask why in the dailyservice, why on Sundays, you rehearse the Psalms, which have aboutthem so much that is incomprehensible, so much that requiresexplanation; why there are those tremendous denunciations of enemies,why there are those prayers that seem at first sight to touchwants that we modern people scarcely know; but if you want a realjustification and a handy answer you may fall back upon the generaltexture of the psalter as exprest by such solemn words as those of thetext. If you would find any document, any volume that will speak yourthoughts best about and towards eternity, you cannot select a betterthan the Hebrew psalter, for the general tone and temper of itsteaching is the cry of the soul for God.

And then there is another thought upon the threshold of such a subjectthat demands our attention. This verse of the text, being a sort ofexample or representative verse of the psalter, expresses to us--doesit not?--the attitude and the mission of the Christian Church. Theattitude. For what is the position, dear friends, of the ChristianChurch? What are the struggles of Christian souls except, in the midstof a world that is quite complicated with difficulties, in the midstof a world that is overwhelmed with sorrow, in the midst of a time ofsevere temptation, to constantly rise and gaze high above the thoughtof evil, and gaze towards the sun of brightness, and cry for God? Andwhat is the mission of the Christian Church? Is it not to help men andwomen in their struggle and their sorrow to forget at least at timestheir pettinesses and degradation to rise to better standards andloftier ideals, and cry for God? And if that be the mission of theChristian Church, then I hold--and that is my point this morning--thatthat is the justification of such noble efforts as have been made inyour church to enable so great, so sinful a city as London to have atleast moments of relaxation from its world-wide weariness, moments ofpause in the pursuit of its sin, and to call it back from thatwhich is overpowering tho transient--to ask it to pass them in theministrations of religion. What is the object of such a church asthis? Why, buried among your buildings, in the midst of this great,powerful, sinful city,--why has it a mission for eternity? Why isit good that you should do your best? Why is it praiseworthy andbeautiful that your rector and churchwardens should have exertedthemselves to the utmost to make this church what it ought to be?Why? Because there is not a man or woman in London, not one in thisbustling crowd, not one in this confusion of commerce, not one in thissink of sin, but might say "Yes"--ought to say, and must ultimatelyfeel, and should now be taught to realize that the soul has onesatisfaction, one only--"My soul is athirst for God, for the livingGod." Well, if that be so, can we be wrong, dear friends, can we wasteour time, if we ask ourselves this morning something quite practicalabout this thirst of the soul?

And, first of all, I submit that in such a verse as this, and in sucha work as this, we are face to face with one of those great governedcontrasts that are found throughout Scripture and throughout humanlife. I may say, _par parenthese_, that that is one of the greatproofs of sacred Scripture. When your shallow thinker, when your wildand profound philosopher, kicks the sacred Book with the toe of hisboot, and denounces it because he does not like the measure of Noah'sArk or the exact activity of Jonah's whale, the moment you beginto think beneath those mere sharpnesses of speech and those merequicknesses of the thought, you say this: "There may be this or thatabout the surface of Scripture which I do not and cannot explain, andcannot entirely understand; but at least there is no book--no, notexcepting Milton; no, not even excepting Dante; no, for us Englishpeople, making no reserve for Shakespeare--there is no book that,after all, expresses that deep, inner, serious fact of my being, ofmy soul, of myself; the fact that lives when our facts are dying; thefact that persists in asserting itself when the noise of the world isstill; the fact that does not care about daylight only, but comes upin the dark; the fact that whispers low when I am in the crowd, butspeaks loud in the darkest night, when the clock is ticking on thestairs, and conscience has stalked out and stood before me, assertingfacts that I cannot contradict--there is no look that can speak thatfact of facts, that thirst, that longing, that desolation, thatdesire, that hope, that activity, that possibility of supremecontention and final victory, there is nothing like the Bible thatdoes that." And so wise men, while they admit difficulties, thoughtfulmen, while they do not controvert the fact that that which is divineneeds larger explanation, fall back upon such great governed truths asthat text to support the Bible. The Bible says, asserts, determines,and insists upon the truth which the Church is insisting upon, whichyou and I, in our better moments, emphasize and say "Amen" to--thesoul is athirst for God. The Bible brings home the great contrast thatis present to us all.

Let us dwell, that we may realize this thirst of the soul, upon thecontrast. There are, at least, four forms of attraction which arepresented, as I suppose, to your soul, certainly to mine. First ofall, there is the attraction of natural beauty. If you stand on a fairAugust afternoon on the terrace, for instance, at Berne, or on theheights of Chaumont; if you gaze at the distant Alps, crowned withsnow which was generated in winter, but which takes the brightness andglory of diamonds in the summer sun; if, coming from the noise andheat of England, you first gaze at that line of strange pointedmountains crowned with that whiteness, struck with the sunlight, youare moved by natural beauty. If you stand in America on the upperreaches of the St. Lawrence, and watch the river as it hurries to itsdestiny at Niagara; if you see the tossing water writhing almost likeliving creatures anticipating a dreadful destiny and passing over thefall; or if, rising out of what is tragic in nature, you come to whatis homely--if, for instance, you see the chestnut woods of spring withan inspiration of quiet joy, or if you see the elms at Worcester orHereford in our common England in the autumn time with an inspirationof sorrow; wherever you turn with eye or head, with a feeling in yourheart, a thought in your mind, nature demands her recognition; and youLondon men, in the toil of your struggle, in the noise of your work,in the dust of your confusion of life, when you get your holiday inspring or autumn,--unless, indeed, you have passed into the merecondition of brutes,--while you still keep the hearts of men, you feelthere is something in the apostles of culture, in the teachers ofesthetics, in persons who say that beauty is everything to satisfy thesoul. Nature, you say--and you say it justly--says, "Beauty." Youfind a delight as you gaze upon nature. Yes, dear friends, you arestimulated, you are delighted, you are consoled; there is one thingwhich you are not--you are not satisfied.

Or, quite possibly, you turn to that which seems to English naturesmore practical and less poetical--you turn to the attraction ofactivity. You say the poets, or the preachers, or the dreamers maygaze upon nature; but Englishmen have something else to do--we have towork. You look at the result of activity, and it is splendid. Imagine,picture for a moment, political achievement; picture to yourselves thepower not only of a mind, but of a personality, of a characterwhich can attract vast millions who have never gazed upon the humanexpression in the human face--can attract them to great love or togreat hatred, can mold the destinies of an empire, can change thecurrent of the time--think of such men as Richelieu or Cavour, or moremodern instances, and you understand what is the greatness and thepower of the attraction of political activity. Or, to come nearerhome, go into your London city, and watch the working of your Londonmart. What have you before you there? The activity of the hearts andminds of Englishmen, sending out the force of the life that is in themfrom the heart that is beating in those tremendous centers to thedistances that are only stopt by the most distant frontiers of theworld. Your sayings and thoughts are quoted throughout the markets ofEurope--yes, throughout the markets of other continents; your actionsand decisions make the difference between the decisions and theactions of men that you have never seen, that you shall never see. TheMedici were a power in Florence, first as bankers, then as governors.There are men in London who have power throughout the world, not onlyin Florence, not as profest governors, but as practical governorsthrough the activity of commercial instinct. Certainly, it seems to mequite possible that there may be minds carried away by such a greatactivity; but that great activity I submit to your deeper, quieterEnglish Sunday thought--that activity will stimulate, will delight,will attract, will intoxicate; one thing it will not do--I am bold tosay it will never satisfy.

And if I may take another instance for a moment, there is this pureintellect, bidding good-by to the political arena, to the commercialstrife, saying farewell to the dreams of beauty, and falling backupon the cells of the brain, traversing the corridors of thought, andentering first here and there into that labyrinth of instinct, orassociation, or accumulative learning. Certainly, there is a power ofa delight that the world can never realize outside the region of thebrain. If that needs proof you have only, dear friends, to meditateupon such lives as Newton, or Shakespeare, or Kepler, or if you turnto the region of meditative thought, to such lives as our own GeorgeEliot--yes, there is that in the mere exercise of intellect whichis intoxicating, which is consoling even to the highest degree. Butintellect, after all, finds its frontier. I may say of it what Ihave said of the esthetic sentiment, what I have said of the activesentiment in man: it attracts, it delights--what is more, I thinkit even consoles; but the one thing I find about it that to me isperfectly appalling is that it does not satisfy.

There are many of you perhaps to-day who will demand that I shouldtake my fourth instance, and will ask that that at least may do itsduty. Will it? There is the region of the affections--that regionwherein we stray in early spring days as pickers of the spring-flowersof our opening life, where suns are always glorious and sunsets onlyspeak of brighter dawn, where poetry is in all ordinary conversationand hope springs to higher heights from hour to hour, where Maysare always Mays and Junes are always Junes, where flowers are everbursting, and there seems no end to our nosegays, no limit to ourimaginations, no fetter to our fancies, no restraint to our desires.There is the world, the vast, powerful world, of the passions,purified by exhaustive cultivation into what we call the affectionsof a higher life. By them we deal with our fellow-creatures; by them,when we are young, we form great friendships; by them, as we growolder, we form around us certain associations that we intend tosupport us as life goes off. We have all known it. There is thefriend, there is the sweetheart, there is the wife, there is thechild, there are the dear expressions of the strong heart that afterall beats in Englishmen. But as life goes on, first in one object andthen by anticipation and terror perhaps in others, we watch those whohave been dear to us pass in dim procession to the grave, and we find,after all, that in the world of affections that old strange law thatpervades one branch of the contrast prevails; it can stimulate, it cansupport, it can console, it can delight, it can lead to deliriumat moments, but it does not satisfy. And, my brothers and sisters,because you and I are born not for a moment, but for infinite moments;not for the struggle of time, but for the great platform and career ofeternity--because that is so, never, never, never, if we are true toourselves, shall we pause in the midst of our mortal pilgrimage untilwe find, and grasp, and embrace, and love that which satisfies. Whenyou awaken up a young heart to that truth, then that heart, as I holdit, is on the path of conversion. When amidst the struggle of sin youhave determined the soul to strive after that truth, then that soul isin progress of solid conversion and final perfectibility. But, at anyrate, all human nature joins that cry of the Christian, and the Biblespeaks of it as it always does--its ultimate truth expressing what weneed. No; there are many things given, there are many attractions todraw; they will stimulate, they will help, they will console, theywill give pleasure; there is one thing that satisfies the immortal,there is one life that meets your need: "My soul is athirst for God,for the living God; when shall I come to appear before the presence ofGod?"

Why, dear friends, why is it that these things do not satisfy? Therelies a city in the Volscian Hills, fair and beautiful, climbing in itspeaks and pinnacles up little ledges of the rocks, and down into thedepths of the valleys. And if you wander some two days from Rome, andgaze upon those mountains, historic in their memories and splendid intheir beauty, you are struck by the tenderness and the attraction ofthat city. It is a city of flowers. The flowers stream up its streetsin grave procession; they climb up the pillars of churches, embracingthem and holding on with arms of deep affection; they laugh in thesunshine, they weep in the shadow, they are shrouded in the clouds ofnight, but they blaze again in the blaze of the morning. There isthe dim funereal ivy, there is the brightness and glow of the purpleconvolvulus, there is the wild-rose clustering round the windows. Theyare lying asleep on the doorsteps, they gather themselves intoknots as if to gossip and to talk in the language of flowers by thedoorways--utterly beautiful! You look at the city with wonder andastonishment--with desire. How wonderful, you say, that church towercovered with its flowers; that altar covered with flowers not gatheredand placed in vases, but with Nature's own hand arranging an offeringto the living God. These streets that sound no footfall of an angrymultitude, but that listen to the footfall of a quiet nature--yes,it is beautiful in the early morning. But stay there until the laterafternoon, when the fog begins to gather; stay there until night-time,when the miasma begins to rise; stay there until morning, and youare in danger of destruction from poison. It is a land of floweryexpression; but it is not a land of real life.

My friends, the activity of man, the poetic faculty of man, all thegifts and all the capacities of man--they are beautiful, they aretouching, they are attractive; but if they are all, if they expressall that you have to offer, and all that is in you to feel, then theyare hollow, or they-are poisonous, and like that city of flowers. Why?Because there is in you and me a soul that lies behind our thought,altho there is more than feeling there--a soul that supports our will,and is more than our volition. It thinks, but is not thought; itfeels, but is not feeling; it wills, but is not volition. Thereis something deeper in man than his esthetic desire or his activepractise, something deeper beneath us all than anything that findsexpression, certainly than anything that finds satisfaction. There isthe self; there is myself, yourself; there is that strange, mysteriouslife of loneliness which stands, and thinks, and judges, andappraises. When, by divine grace, we escape from the voice of thecrowd, and from the cry of custom, from the delirium of desire, thatpoor lonely self within us pleads to us in a cry like the call ofthe starveling crying to the rich man that passes by, "Oh, will yougratify desire? Oh, will you gratify pleasure? Oh, will you stimulateactivity, and will you leave me alone? I, yourself, your very self,the foundation of your life, the permanent expression of yourimmortality--I must be satisfied, and being infinite and immortal, Iknow but one satisfaction: 'My soul is athirst for God, for the livingGod; when shall I come, and appear before the presence of God?'"

If that be true, or if it be approximately true, dear friends, let usask ourselves this morning these questions. Let us be quite practical.What do you mean, you may say for a moment, by the thirst for God? Iremember long ago in Paris, in conversation with one whom I deemone of the greatest modern statesmen, tho not one of the mostsuccessful--I remember, when a mere boy, talking to that thoughtfulman just at the moment when he was standing amidst the ruins of hisactivity, and gazing with the placid spirit with which a good mangazes when he feels that he has done his duty, tho the world can seethat he has failed--I remember talking to him on such questions asthese, and what he said, among other things, was this: "In dealingwith mankind and in dealing with yourself you must rise by degrees,you must advance from point to point; there is a point of achievement,but you cannot reach the point of achievement unless you have goneup the ladder of progress." I follow his advice. What do we mean bythirsting for God? My friends, on the lower round of that ladder, Imean thirsting for and desiring moral truth. I mean that the soulwithin you is thirsting and imploring for the satisfaction of itsmoral instincts. Turn for an instant to the ten commandments; they aretrite, they are ordinary, they are placed before you in the east endof your church, after the old custom of your practical, unaesthetic,and undreaming England. Ask what they mean. Turn to the second table.You are to reverence your father and mother. Why? Because they arethe instruments of life that God gives. You are to reverence life inothers in the sixth commandment. Why? Because life is the deepestmystery that God can possibly exhibit to you. In the seventhcommandment--I scarcely like to say, but yet it is wise to repeat, itis necessary to assert it--we are to remember, you and I, when weare young, when we are active, when we are passionate, the greatresponsibility of man; you are not to trifle with that awful mystery,the transmission of life, life which unites itself with eternal love.You are to remember respect for property, for that which divineprovidence has placed by wise laws in the hands of others. You are toremember that the best of properties is a good character. Finally, inthe tenth commandment, you are not to forget that divine providenceguides you, and you are not to murmur and be angry when He guides youwho knows the best for you, and when you have done your best. Andrising from the second table and coming to the first, you are not toforget that there is one object for every soul, as the text asserts.You are not to forget that a jealousy may be created, ought to becreated, if you put anything before God. You are not to grudge God therestraint of speech, and--thank God, still it is possible to appeal tothe wise instincts of England--you are not to grudge on your Sundaythe gift of your time. These are the outlines of the grave moral lawthat runs deep into the heart of the Christian; and I answer, thethirst for God means the thirst within me to fulfil that grave morallaw.

But, my friends, pause for a moment. After all, that would only be askeleton. After all, simply to draw out the outlines of a picture isnot the work of an artist. Suppose you ask a master in music, "How amI to produce the real result of stately sound?" He will tell you aboutthe common cord; he will tell you about the result of its changes andits affinities, and will speak of those results as harmony; or he willtell you about the gamut of sounds--sounds found in the wind upon themountains, found in the surging sea, found in the voice of childhood,found in the whisper of your dreams--sound that is everywhere, soundthat wanders up and down this wild, wild universe. He will tell youall that, and explain how in proper steps, in wise modulations, thatis melody, as the union of sounds is harmony. Is that enough? Wouldthat produce "The Last Judgment" of Spohr, that made you dissolve intears? Would that produce the chorus of Handel that made you almostrise and march in majesty? Would that fill you with deep thoughts inBeethoven, or fire you into joy in Mendelssohn? Oh, no! You have yourskeleton, but you have not one thing, the deepest; genius has to touchwith its fire the fact that is before you; you want the mystery oflife. And then suppose you turn to an artist and ask him to guide youin painting, and he talks to you about light and shadow, about thelaying of the color, about the drawing of lines, about the exactexpression of the distant and the present, of the foreground and thebackground, and having learned it all, you produce what seems anabortion; you ask yourself, "What is the meaning of this?" Is thisenough to make you quiver, in Dresden, before the San Sisto, carriedaway by those divine eyes of the "Mother of Eternity," or rent withsorrow before the solemn eyes of the Child? Is this enough to fill youwith tears of delight when you enter the Sistine Chapel and see St.John as he kneels with his unshed tears about the dead Christ? What isthere wanting in the touch of your artist? There is wanting genius;there is wanting life. Or to take one instance more. You ask somebodyto teach you sculpture, to tell you how to make yourself master in thetreatment of stone. He will tell you wise things about the plasticmaterial that you have to mold with thumb and finger, and then aboutthe use of the chisel and the hammer to produce the result in thestone, following the treatment of that plastic material. But when youhave learned it all, can you really believe that you will produce theeffect of that majestic manhood that you see in the David of Angeloin the Piazza of Florence, or that wise, determined progress that isexprest in Donatello's St. George? What is the difference between yourfailure and the results of those men? Genius--life. And when you turnto the moral law, and when you ask yourself, "How can I learn tobe athirst for God?" the preachers say, "Accept the moral law; actexactly in distinct duty to your parents; say, 'Corban, it is a giftby whatsoever thou mayest be profited thereby'; do your duty strictlyto the letter and nothing more; be conservative about your property;restrain yourself from desire of change; do not stimulate and do notsatisfy your passions beyond what is exactly exprest in the morallaw." But then, if you speak the truth, you say, "And in the end whatam I? Why, after all, most commonplace, and, in truth, most sinful."What is the difference? This difference: there wants here the touch ofgenius; there wants the touch of life divine, grace that illuminatesthe moral law; there wants, my friends, the enthusiasm for goodness,the science of sciences, the art of arts, the delight and the desireof doing right because it is right, the great and splendid spirit thatbelongs to all of us; and yet it is the highest when the thirst ofyour soul is real. Certainly it is to know God's guidance in law; butwhat is law? It is to grasp that atmosphere of life and reality whichcomes out of the moral law to those who seek it in a living personfirst--the desire of goodness, the desire, the love, the enthusiasm,the ambition, cost what it may, of doing right because it isright. Oh, my friends, I submit--and I submit it without fear ofcontradiction--that is an ambition worthy of Englishmen. Certainlywe are not dreamers; certainly God has given us practical activity;certainly, whatever we misunderstand, this we can understand, thethirst of the soul for God is the thirst to love goodness because itis right.

And then hastily to conclude, I would say that that thirst is exprest,that that thirst is satisfied, not only in moral law and in itsatmosphere, but in one thing more that I think we can all understand.When we read the New Testament, so simple, so straightforward, sotrue, so beautiful, with some difficulties, but no difficulties that atrue heart can find insuperable--when we read the New Testament we arebrought face to face with the teachings of Christ. And there is this,my friends, more about these teachings, that if you are to follow themout you have not time enough in time; the teachings of our Masterdemand eternity--there is something about them infinite, so simple, sobeautiful, and yet we feel that we are insufficient to fulfil them inthis sphere of time. If my soul is athirst for God, it is athirst forthe fulfilment of those great, splendid, practical teachings whichremind me that I am to begin to learn my lesson in this narrow school,but that I shall fulfil my achievement in that great land beyond thegrave. Is that enough? No; no, when the heart is lonely; no, when thesun is setting; no, when the clouds are gathering round us; no, whenthe storm is coming up. It is useless for the preacher, if he tries tobe real, to talk about law, or the result of law, or the splendor ofteaching; if we know the human heart in its width and its activity, ifit is to find satisfaction it must find it in a personal life. Youmay say you cannot know God. That is the ordinary answer of the humansinning heart, which in modern times calls itself agnostic. Know God!Well, of course it is truly said that it is by mere license of speechwhen you talk of knowledge about human perceptions--it is wisely said.You perceive a fact, my friend; you must perceive it in itself, and asit is, and by an intellect that can infallibly state that it is soand in that manner. Knowledge like that is impossible, I grant; butbetween that scientific knowledge and utter unbelief there are shades,first of all of assent that shuts out doubt, and at last, at the otherpole, of a doubt that almost shuts out assent. Between the two thereare activities of life, and if you are to say, "I cannot know thepersonal God with scientific knowledge," I grant it; but you cannotknow anything, not only in theology, but in politics, or social life,or moral conduct, or conduct that is not moral--you can know nothing,you can never act at all, because all our action is not on knowledge,but on belief, and therefore when we turn to a personal life that isnot perceived by the activity of the senses we only demand that youare to accept that which it is possible to accept in any sphere ofactivity, and which you do accept. It is possible for you, accordingto the laws of your being, to accept a personal Christ. "But," yousay--and I must remind you of it as I close--"a personal Christ,but still clothed in human lineaments, a personal Christ who ismysterious--how can you accept that?" How can you not? My friends, thehuman intellect is so framed that it acts habitually upon ideas thatare true yet indistinct. You act on space, you act on time, you haveinfinity, you have in your mouth the word "cause." What do you knowexactly about infinity, or space, or time, or cause? The humanintellect, it is truly said, first by the greatest of the fathers,then repeated by modern thinkers--the human intellect is so great,first, that it can take exact ideas, and then, because it is infinite,that it can act instantly upon ideas that are real but indistinct.Christ--yes, first He is indistinct yet most real--real because Heentered into history, real because He exprest the idea that is in thebrain and heart of us all; indistinct because these little twentycenturies have separated us from His actual historic life; but a factto those who seek Him, because His power is to make Himself an inwardgift to the human soul, because His activity is such that He meets uson the altar of His sacred sacrament, that He meets us in the divineWord to express His thoughts, that He meets us in consolation, that Hemeets us in absolution, in moments of sorrow and of prayer. Oh, youare not driven to a distant infinity! Oh, you are not asked to restupon a shadow I Oh, you are not besought to play the dreamer orthe sentimentalist, when you think about God! Oh, you are asked toremember that fair, sweet vision--the vision of a Man so devoid ofvulgarity, that whilst He loved the people He did not despise thegreat--the vision of a Man so strong that He could face a multitude,so tender that He could raise the lost woman, so gentle that thelittle children gathered their arms about His neck; the vision ofa Man at home with fishermen, and at home with the high-born, withthoughts so deep that they permeate modern Christendom, with thoughtsso simple that they taught truth to ancient Galilee; the vision of aMan who encouraged youth, the One on whom we rest, by whom we hang, inwhom we hope, who sympathizes with all our best desires, who does notdenounce us, but only intercedes and pities; the Man who never placesHimself upon a Pharisaic pedestal, but feels with the child, with theboy, with the man, with the woman,--the Man of men, the crown of ourhumanity, the God in Man, the Man in God, the power of the sacraments,the force of prayer, the sweet, dear Friend who never misunderstandsus, never forsakes us, never is hard upon us. My friends, it is yourprivilege, it is mine, beyond the privilege of the psalmist, to knowin the gospel, to know in the Church, Christ, God exprest in humanity.Is your soul athirst for the highest? You may find it if you couldcome in repentance, if you come in desire, if you come in quietdetermination to do your duty; you may find it satisfied--yes, nowsatisfied--in Christ.